Art: All things bright and beautiful

From impressionism to beautiful Japanese woodcuts and the frankly erotic, Frank Whitford chooses volumes on which you will want to feast your eyes this Christmas

Your perfect Christmas may well involve the aroma of a good cigar, the taste of vintage port, and a fat picture book. If so, you’ll like The Rose Window: Splendour and Symbol by Painton Cowen (Thames & Hudson £39.95). Marvellous colour photographs dominate, though an informative text explains the history and symbolism of what is often the most impressive feature of a gothic church — the round window usually at the west end and filled with richly decorated stained glass. With this large but not unwieldy book on your knees, a pleasing holiday is assured.

Another potential present has a longer text, but the illustrations are just as impressive. The subject is more seasonal, too, since Marina Belozerskaya’s Luxury Arts of the Renaissance (Thames & Hudson £60) examines the kind of spectacularly crafted objects — engraved armour, tapestries, utensils in gold and silver and such like — that were often commissioned as elaborate